Blackwell Reference Online

Extract

Or iconodule: a defender of the veneration of icons during the Byzantine iconoclast controversy of the eighth and ninth centuries. The empresses Irene and Theodora and the theologians john of damascus , Patriarch nikephoros I and theodore the studite were among the most important iconophiles. Iconophiles persecuted by the iconoclast emperors included Stephen the Younger, Theodore and Theophanes Graptoi, ‘the inscribed’ (the emperor had offensive verses tattooed on their foreheads), and Theodosia, celebrated on 29 May as protomartyr of the icons, executed for casting down from his ladder, and accidentally killing, the soldier removing the icon of Christ from the Chalke Gate. The imperial policy of iconoclasm led to the theological definition of the role and function of the icon in the Byzantine church. See also theodore abū qurrah . ( 1996 ), Depicting the Word: Byzantine Iconophile Thought of the Eighth and Ninth Centuries . Leiden : Brill . ( 1994 ), Images of the Divine: The Theology of Icons at the Seventh Ecumenical Council . Leiden : Brill . ... log in or subscribe to read full text